TEXT C

Cooperation is the only safeguard we have against the development of neurotic tendencies. It is therefore very important that children should be trained and encouraged in cooperation, and should be allowed to find their own way amongst children of their own age, in common tasks and shared s. Any barrier to cooperation will have serious consequences. The spoilt child, for example, who has learned to be interested only in himself, will take this lack of interest in others to school with him. His lessons will interest him only in so far as he thinks he gains his teachers’ favor. He will listen only to what he considers advantageous to himself. As approaches hood, the result of his lack of social feeling will become more and more evident. When he first misunderstood the meaning of life, he ceased training himself for responsibility and independence. By now he is painfully ill-equipped for life’s tests and difficulties. We cannot blame the for the child’s early mistakes. We can only help him to remedy them when he begins to suffer the consequences. We do not expect a child who has never been taught geography to score high marks in an examination paper on the subject. Similarly, we cannot expect a child who has never been trained in cooperation to respond appropriately when tasks that demand cooperation are set before him. But all of life’s problems demand an ability to cooperate if they are to be resolved; every task must be ed within the framework of human society and in a way that furthers human welfare. Only the individual who understands that life means contribution will be able to meet his difficulties with courage and with a good chance of success. If teachers, parents and psychologists understand the mistakes that can be made in ascribing a meaning to life, and provided they do not make the same mistakes themselves, we can be confident that children who lack social feeling will ually develop a better sense of their own capacities and of the opportunities in life. When they meet problems, they will not stop trying; they will not look for an easy way out, try to escape or throw the burden onto the shoulders of others; they will not demand extra consideration or special sympathy; they will not feel humiliated and seek revenge, or ask, "what is the use of life What do I get from it" They will say, "we must make our own lives. It is our own task and we are capable of performing it. We are s of our own actions, ff something new must ’be done or something old replaced, no one can do it but ourselves." If life is approached in this way, as a cooperation of independent human beings, there are no limits to the progress of our human civilization.

When the begins to suffer the consequences of his early mistakes, we should